At a crossroads
The United Kingdom’s economy has encountered a challenging phase, with consecutive monthly declines in GDP marking the first back-to-back contraction since the tumultuous days of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Amazon has announced to freeze new hiring in its corporate workforce, with the global economy “in an uncertain place”.
Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, confirmed the move in a memo that the company had already begun pausing or slowing hiring in various corporate departments in “recent weeks”.
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“We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” Galetti wrote.
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“With fewer people to hire at this moment, this should give each team an opportunity to further prioritise what matters most to customers and the business, and to be more productive,” he added.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been looking for ways to cut costs across the company.
“Good companies that last a long period of time, who are thinking about the long term, always have this push and pull. There are some years where they’re expanding really broadly. Some years where they’re checking in and working on profitability, tightening the belt a little bit,” he said recently.
Galetti said that the company anticipates “keeping this pause in place for the next few months, and will continue to monitor what we’re seeing in the economy and the business to adjust as we think makes sense”.
“In general, depending on the business or area of the company, we will hire backfills to replace employees who move on to new opportunities, and there are some targeted places where we will continue to hire people incrementally,” he noted.
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